I think I am seeing the problem with A La Carte purchases.
DM's didn't use them as much since they wanted the whole of the books to make adventures with.
Players just didn't want to purchase the whole book but instead just wanted the little part that let them make or use the new character features in each book. (I can see why and understand) And for the most part did not have a DM who could share content with them.
This was a problem originating with the people who made it happen. WOTC. This whole argument would not be happening if they never made them available in the first place. But the cat is out of the bag now so they should stick to their end of the agreement. They need to keep A La Carte purchases open for the now legacy content.
They have no need to keep the practice going for the new content. Its their choice. I am now thinking they under valued the A La Carte content. And i bet they think the same after looking through the numbers. In essence they figured out the secret. Especially after seeing this thread.
The next question is will they ever make the a la carte option available for the new content?
As a DM I did not, at the time, really need the digital fluff of a whole book until recently. Only thing that was really worth any value was the char gen aspects of the content.
The PHB back then had class and race single purchase options,( 1.99 a piece), or a sub bundle of all the classes. ( I believe it was $9.99 )
WotC is the ones removing the feature, but that feature was part of this site long before the acquisition, and is what caught WotC’s eye.
Now it is currently no longer offered. Okay, but will it return? Personally I don’t see them doing this till after the three book new rules are out, and the sales numbers back the need of a-la-carte return.
If the new rules flop, and yes at this point one does have to consider the possibility, how much worst will the D&D side of WotC/Hasbro become till the decision is made to ether scrap the site, ( I doubt it will just up and disappear, but then you never can know for sure till it happens ), or sale whatever is left of the corpse of what D&D was. ( I doubt this, the brand name alone is currently worth a pretty penny, and fairly well known)
WotC / Hasbro should be looking at the forums and be thinking, “Damn, maybe an announcement would have been better” but instead we got “Who cares, milk’em harder, and if we lose 20% of the community, milk the remaining even harder.”
You assume what you’re seeing here represents a sizable market segment, and that might very well not be the case. Look at the engagement with the significantly more publicized OGL issue vs the UA playtests in surveys, it was an order of magnitude smaller iirc. I can’t prove anything either way, of course, but it seems unlikely they wouldn’t have assessed the size of the market segment affected by this change.
You too are assuming, lest you have a source(s) others do not.
We often see the term gatekeeping thrown around on this site, isn't this just wizbro gatekeeping those with a small budget for entertainment out of lots of the game that has not been case historically on this site and add the fact it was done without notice and in the cover of night, with conflicting statements on the site that led to more anger and confusion. It is their property, and they can do what they want with it but if gatekeeping wrong this is too. It's like wizbro and kellog's hired classmates for the people coming up with these ideas.
For the record I only used the piece meal a few times so other than a poor PR move and yet another reason not to trust this company I am not affected unless I want the credit towards the books I bought parts of, unlikely as it is hidden behind too many hoops to jump through and those books are of little use to me.
I am not assuming, I am inferring from the fact that WotC is a large publicly traded corporation that they will have done elementary market research ahead of making a significant change to their sales paradigm, given that they need to be able to explain the decision-making process to their stockholders. There's significantly less leaps and unknowns in that chain of logic than the "WotC is gonna get burned financially by this" assumptions. It is technically possible that WotC's executive body is comprised primarily of reckless buffoons and certainly suits the narrative of moral bankruptcy often associated with the position that this is some great sales blunder, but even weighed against the previous instances of questionable decision making, those aren't comparable scenarios. As has previously been said, it would not be hard for them to crunch the numbers on a la carte vs whole book and see what their margin was there and weigh how many additional sales of full books they'd need to offset the cost. And I'm not saying that they have absolute incontrovertible proof that it would be more profitable, just that they clearly and objectively have access to far more data on the topic than we do, and it is far more reasonable to posit that they did in fact review that data before making the decision rather than simply making a spontaneous change to their business model.
Interesting logic, your "inference" is based on your assumption(s), unless you have access to information others do not, and unless that is the case we are all making assumptions to give weight to our individual parsing of the data available.
Again this is the same rhetoric and false logic cast towards those that speculated piece meal could be on the chopping block after the book of many things was released here with no piece meal options.
We are all just guessing, and your guess is no better than anyone else's at this point unless you have access to something others do not.
If they only release the new SRD under CC. The thing about the OGL was it actually defined what WotC declares as IP.
without it, we have have no way to know if we are breaking IP and or copyright laws.
This is simply not true. The OGL did not define anything - copyright law did, and the OGL had some vague legalese that basically boiled down to "I guess follow copyright and trademark law for everything that is not on this list?" The SRD and Creative Commons will do the job just fine - the OGL added absolutely nothing useful legally. Use what is the SRD; do not use things that are not in the SRD. You do not need to be an expert in IP law to figure this out.
If they only release the new SRD under CC. The thing about the OGL was it actually defined what WotC declares as IP.
without it, we have have no way to know if we are breaking IP and or copyright laws.
This is simply not true. The OGL did not define anything - copyright law did, and the OGL had some vague legalese that basically boiled down to "I guess follow copyright and trademark law for everything that is not on this list?" The SRD and Creative Commons will do the job just fine - the OGL added absolutely nothing useful legally. Use what is the SRD; do not use things that are not in the SRD. You do not need to be an expert in IP law to figure this out.
If you will please from now on post the complete text of the mentioned post, otherwise I will have to ask you to refrain from using any post quoted my be, Thank you.
To answer yor remark, left block of first page defies what WotC considers Trademark, Copyright, and IP property. Second bolck on right of legal page declares how such defined terms ( IP defined as etc, etc, …..zzz) can be used as part of the agreement of the terms.
It protected me as long as I painted between the lines, overstepped and i would expect WotC would own my ass, have not problem going through paperwork, and giving credit where credits due.
No, getting rid of the OGL is WotC needing something bad enough they ate a fireball to the gut and I do think they felt that.
If they only release the new SRD under CC. The thing about the OGL was it actually defined what WotC declares as IP.
without it, we have have no way to know if we are breaking IP and or copyright laws.
This is simply not true. The OGL did not define anything - copyright law did, and the OGL had some vague legalese that basically boiled down to "I guess follow copyright and trademark law for everything that is not on this list?" The SRD and Creative Commons will do the job just fine - the OGL added absolutely nothing useful legally. Use what is the SRD; do not use things that are not in the SRD. You do not need to be an expert in IP law to figure this out.
If you will please from now on post the complete text of the mentioned post, otherwise I will have to ask you to refrain from using any post quoted my be, Thank you.
To answer yor remark, left block of first page defies what WotC considers Trademark, Copyright, and IP property. Second bolck on right of legal page declares how such defined terms ( IP defined as etc, etc, …..zzz) can be used as part of the agreement of the terms.
It protected me as long as I painted between the lines, overstepped and i would expect WotC would own my ass, have not problem going through paperwork, and giving credit where credits due.
No, getting rid of the OGL is WotC needing something bad enough they ate a fireball to the gut and I do think they felt that.
Just a heads up anyone can click the black arrow next to your name to jump to the quoted post and read the whole post, I am personally not a fan of scrolling to get to the reply, and a snippet from the quoted post sure helps keep the scrolling to a minimum while providing the reply history and references what the reply is to. Just a thought from a different perspective.
If they only release the new SRD under CC. The thing about the OGL was it actually defined what WotC declares as IP.
without it, we have have no way to know if we are breaking IP and or copyright laws.
This is simply not true. The OGL did not define anything - copyright law did, and the OGL had some vague legalese that basically boiled down to "I guess follow copyright and trademark law for everything that is not on this list?" The SRD and Creative Commons will do the job just fine - the OGL added absolutely nothing useful legally. Use what is the SRD; do not use things that are not in the SRD. You do not need to be an expert in IP law to figure this out.
If you will please from now on post the complete text of the mentioned post, otherwise I will have to ask you to refrain from using any post quoted my be, Thank you.
To answer yor remark, left block of first page defies what WotC considers Trademark, Copyright, and IP property. Second bolck on right of legal page declares how such defined terms ( IP defined as etc, etc, …..zzz) can be used as part of the agreement of the terms.
It protected me as long as I painted between the lines, overstepped and i would expect WotC would own my ass, have not problem going through paperwork, and giving credit where credits due.
No, getting rid of the OGL is WotC needing something bad enough they ate a fireball to the gut and I do think they felt that.
As I said, the OGL did not actually define anything - that section of the OGL basically boils down to “We consider our IP our IP, but you can use the things we list here if you want.” Maybe you found it useful, but from a legal and common sense perspective, it was just stating what everyone should already know.
It is pretty simple - if it is in the SRD, you can use it. If it is not and was something created by Wizards, you cannot unless covered by a different license (like on DMs Guild). If you need the legal equivalent of a contract written in crayon on a cocktail napkin (which is what the OGL pretty much was) to tell you more than that, not really sure what to tell you.
To answer yor remark, left block of first page defies what WotC considers Trademark, Copyright, and IP property. Second bolck on right of legal page declares how such defined terms ( IP defined as etc, etc, …..zzz) can be used as part of the agreement of the terms.
If you're using the CC-BY version, you do not need to know what WotC believes those terms to mean... because what they mean is defined by the license or general law, neither of which is under WotC control to start with. At a certain point it would be a good idea to talk to a lawyer... but that point is not meaningfully different for the different license versions.
Just giving people a heads up. I don't have access to any of my individually purchased content anymore.
Is there an easy(ish) way to identify what content you own on this site? Seems like it would be prudent to do a stocktake and try to confirm/deny what's actually going on here?
Just giving people a heads up. I don't have access to any of my individually purchased content anymore.
Is there an easy(ish) way to identify what content you own on this site? Seems like it would be prudent to do a stocktake and try to confirm/deny what's actually going on here?
The list of content you have licensed can be found at this link.
Just giving people a heads up. I don't have access to any of my individually purchased content anymore.
Is there an easy(ish) way to identify what content you own on this site? Seems like it would be prudent to do a stocktake and try to confirm/deny what's actually going on here?
The list of content you have licensed can be found at this link.
Such an elegant interface🙄 and so easy to find. Sure would have been nice if they would implement this in the new marketplace.
As I said, the OGL did not actually define anything - that section of the OGL basically boils down to “We consider our IP our IP, but you can use the things we list here if you want.” Maybe you found it useful, but from a legal and common sense perspective, it was just stating what everyone should already know.
It is pretty simple - if it is in the SRD, you can use it. If it is not and was something created by Wizards, you cannot unless covered by a different license (like on DMs Guild). If you need the legal equivalent of a contract written in crayon on a cocktail napkin (which is what the OGL pretty much was) to tell you more than that, not really sure what to tell you.
I’m sure we are both at this point going to agree to disagree. I leaned legal jargon while learning financial lingo, so please quit insulting my intelligence, I deeply researched the legal framework of the OGL, was about to utilize it when the blow-up happened.
Now, with all that is going on, I can wait till the dust settles. I can read the tea leaves, certainty unclear.
As I said, the OGL did not actually define anything - that section of the OGL basically boils down to “We consider our IP our IP, but you can use the things we list here if you want.” Maybe you found it useful, but from a legal and common sense perspective, it was just stating what everyone should already know.
It is pretty simple - if it is in the SRD, you can use it. If it is not and was something created by Wizards, you cannot unless covered by a different license (like on DMs Guild). If you need the legal equivalent of a contract written in crayon on a cocktail napkin (which is what the OGL pretty much was) to tell you more than that, not really sure what to tell you.
I’m sure we are both at this point going to agree to disagree. I leaned legal jargon while learning financial lingo, so please quit insulting my intelligence, I deeply researched the legal framework of the OGL, was about to utilize it when the blow-up happened.
Now, with all that is going on, I can wait till the dust settles. I can read the tea leaves, certainty unclear.
I want to be clear, I am not insulting your intelligence - only that of whomever wrote the OGL. Speaking from the perspective of an attorney who has done some IP work and who has read a whole bunch of similar contracts (sometimes for my own entertainment), I can categorically say the OGL is the worst written license I have ever seen.
The entire contract has major holes, fails to define significant terms, and dedicates a significant portion of its already incredibly trite length to simply stating “hey, if we do not cover it here and we own the IP rights, we do in fact own those IP rights and do not cover it here.” They use slightly more verbose language and list those things explicitly - but, legally, it is kind of hollow language. It was a bad license and should cease to be used. Everyone - Wizards and content creators alike - is better off just using the Creative Commons.
Edit: I suppose this is neither here nor there. The only thing that really matters for this thread is the importance of communication - and, fortunately, Wizards does seem to be doing that regarding the SRD and 2024, as per their recent update on the subject.
Yea, I’m well aware of many an IP lawyer absolutely loathing sandbox license agreements. But damage done.
Well a-la-carte is currently no longer being served and no idea if a return will happen. Well the hornets nest has been rattled, lets see how long before we hear screams.
You assume what you’re seeing here represents a sizable market segment, and that might very well not be the case. Look at the engagement with the significantly more publicized OGL issue vs the UA playtests in surveys, it was an order of magnitude smaller iirc. I can’t prove anything either way, of course, but it seems unlikely they wouldn’t have assessed the size of the market segment affected by this change.
Building on the above, the loss could be a substantial portion of players and Wizards could still come out ahead. If a full book costs $30.00 and a piecemeal option costs $1.99, for ever fifteen people who purchased piecemeal, Wizards only needs one of them to purchase the whole book to break even. Converting 7% of purchasers is really not a high bar to clear, so folks should not really hang their hat on the “this will be a financial loss for Wizards” argument.
As I have said before, the real problem with removing piecemeal purchases is the fact it transforms what was once a player-level investment into a DM-level investment, as player facing options now come bundled with a whole lot of content that player will not use.
Wizards, and TSR before them, have long acknowledged one of the barriers to growth in the game was the DM shortage. They have acknowledged this is both a time commitment problem and a financial one. Piecemeal purchasing is not going to solve the time commitment problem of DMs, but it does help reduce some of the financial burden placed on DMs. Further, it makes the initial entry into the true strength of D&D - the plethora of options so you can be whatever your fantasy wants you to be - a lower barrier, so folks can experience some of the more fun aspects of the game which the basic rules do not cover.
The strict application of numbers almost certainly favor removing piecemeal options - those are fairly easy numbers to crunch and estimate, based on sales data from all the sites that do not use piecemeal purchasing. But the long-term growth potential piecemeal options might enable? That is something nearly impossible to quantify - both for us players and for those within Wizards. If folks want piecemeal options reinstated, trying to argue their removal is a financial mistake is not a winning argument. What might be a winning argument? Expressing how important they were to your enjoyment of D&D, how important they were to getting new players to fall in love with the game, and how instrumental they were in your decision to invest heavily in the system. Those are non-quantitative data points Wizards should be made aware of - no use trying to make a quantitative financial argument when they have the numbers and we do not.
I should note, this is not to discourage folks from sharing “I will not be buying I suppose” stories - those personal anecdotes are important so Wizards can see the metaphysical face of their decisions. What I take issue with is the folks who go beyond sharing their important personal anecdotes and are trying to extrapolate a financial disaster without any actual financial information.
I see where you are coming from with the majority of your "we don't have evidence" view, which is valid. I might take a bit of issue with valuing piecemeal purchasers at $2 vs $30 though. If folks are buying piecemeal it more probable they but a few different feats and content. IF you just assume 5 items at $2 each, then it's closer to $10 vs $30 if you compare person to person. Then it's no longer a conceivable 7% sales hurdle. But you're fundamentally right, we don't have the numbers and one would imagine somebody somewhere did some work on historical sales to make this leap.
You assume what you’re seeing here represents a sizable market segment, and that might very well not be the case. Look at the engagement with the significantly more publicized OGL issue vs the UA playtests in surveys, it was an order of magnitude smaller iirc. I can’t prove anything either way, of course, but it seems unlikely they wouldn’t have assessed the size of the market segment affected by this change.
Building on the above, the loss could be a substantial portion of players and Wizards could still come out ahead. If a full book costs $30.00 and a piecemeal option costs $1.99, for ever fifteen people who purchased piecemeal, Wizards only needs one of them to purchase the whole book to break even. Converting 7% of purchasers is really not a high bar to clear, so folks should not really hang their hat on the “this will be a financial loss for Wizards” argument.
As I have said before, the real problem with removing piecemeal purchases is the fact it transforms what was once a player-level investment into a DM-level investment, as player facing options now come bundled with a whole lot of content that player will not use.
Wizards, and TSR before them, have long acknowledged one of the barriers to growth in the game was the DM shortage. They have acknowledged this is both a time commitment problem and a financial one. Piecemeal purchasing is not going to solve the time commitment problem of DMs, but it does help reduce some of the financial burden placed on DMs. Further, it makes the initial entry into the true strength of D&D - the plethora of options so you can be whatever your fantasy wants you to be - a lower barrier, so folks can experience some of the more fun aspects of the game which the basic rules do not cover.
The strict application of numbers almost certainly favor removing piecemeal options - those are fairly easy numbers to crunch and estimate, based on sales data from all the sites that do not use piecemeal purchasing. But the long-term growth potential piecemeal options might enable? That is something nearly impossible to quantify - both for us players and for those within Wizards. If folks want piecemeal options reinstated, trying to argue their removal is a financial mistake is not a winning argument. What might be a winning argument? Expressing how important they were to your enjoyment of D&D, how important they were to getting new players to fall in love with the game, and how instrumental they were in your decision to invest heavily in the system. Those are non-quantitative data points Wizards should be made aware of - no use trying to make a quantitative financial argument when they have the numbers and we do not.
I should note, this is not to discourage folks from sharing “I will not be buying I suppose” stories - those personal anecdotes are important so Wizards can see the metaphysical face of their decisions. What I take issue with is the folks who go beyond sharing their important personal anecdotes and are trying to extrapolate a financial disaster without any actual financial information.
I see where you are coming from with the majority of your "we don't have evidence" view, which is valid. I might take a bit of issue with valuing piecemeal purchasers at $2 vs $30 though. If folks are buying piecemeal it more probable they but a few different feats and content. IF you just assume 5 items at $2 each, then it's closer to $10 vs $30 if you compare person to person. Then it's no longer a conceivable 7% sales hurdle. But you're fundamentally right, we don't have the numbers and one would imagine somebody somewhere did some work on historical sales to make this leap.
I definitely think it's safe to assume that someone on the Hasboro/WotC crunched the numbers and that whatever data came out of that, it was at least influential in making this decision. It would be foolish to think otherwise. Perhaps it was also partly speculative and they wanted to preset expectations about people not being able to buy piecemeal from the 1D&D books when they are released (or maybe not). I just wish that there had been better/clearer/earlier communication so that we didn't end up (once again) in a place of people making (sometimes wild) guesses or conspiracy theories. At this point we are in the dark.
You assume what you’re seeing here represents a sizable market segment, and that might very well not be the case. Look at the engagement with the significantly more publicized OGL issue vs the UA playtests in surveys, it was an order of magnitude smaller iirc. I can’t prove anything either way, of course, but it seems unlikely they wouldn’t have assessed the size of the market segment affected by this change.
Building on the above, the loss could be a substantial portion of players and Wizards could still come out ahead. If a full book costs $30.00 and a piecemeal option costs $1.99, for ever fifteen people who purchased piecemeal, Wizards only needs one of them to purchase the whole book to break even. Converting 7% of purchasers is really not a high bar to clear, so folks should not really hang their hat on the “this will be a financial loss for Wizards” argument.
As I have said before, the real problem with removing piecemeal purchases is the fact it transforms what was once a player-level investment into a DM-level investment, as player facing options now come bundled with a whole lot of content that player will not use.
Wizards, and TSR before them, have long acknowledged one of the barriers to growth in the game was the DM shortage. They have acknowledged this is both a time commitment problem and a financial one. Piecemeal purchasing is not going to solve the time commitment problem of DMs, but it does help reduce some of the financial burden placed on DMs. Further, it makes the initial entry into the true strength of D&D - the plethora of options so you can be whatever your fantasy wants you to be - a lower barrier, so folks can experience some of the more fun aspects of the game which the basic rules do not cover.
The strict application of numbers almost certainly favor removing piecemeal options - those are fairly easy numbers to crunch and estimate, based on sales data from all the sites that do not use piecemeal purchasing. But the long-term growth potential piecemeal options might enable? That is something nearly impossible to quantify - both for us players and for those within Wizards. If folks want piecemeal options reinstated, trying to argue their removal is a financial mistake is not a winning argument. What might be a winning argument? Expressing how important they were to your enjoyment of D&D, how important they were to getting new players to fall in love with the game, and how instrumental they were in your decision to invest heavily in the system. Those are non-quantitative data points Wizards should be made aware of - no use trying to make a quantitative financial argument when they have the numbers and we do not.
I should note, this is not to discourage folks from sharing “I will not be buying I suppose” stories - those personal anecdotes are important so Wizards can see the metaphysical face of their decisions. What I take issue with is the folks who go beyond sharing their important personal anecdotes and are trying to extrapolate a financial disaster without any actual financial information.
I see where you are coming from with the majority of your "we don't have evidence" view, which is valid. I might take a bit of issue with valuing piecemeal purchasers at $2 vs $30 though. If folks are buying piecemeal it more probable they but a few different feats and content. IF you just assume 5 items at $2 each, then it's closer to $10 vs $30 if you compare person to person. Then it's no longer a conceivable 7% sales hurdle. But you're fundamentally right, we don't have the numbers and one would imagine somebody somewhere did some work on historical sales to make this leap.
I definitely think it's safe to assume that someone on the Hasboro/WotC crunched the numbers and that whatever data came out of that, it was at least influential in making this decision. It would be foolish to think otherwise. Perhaps it was also partly speculative and they wanted to preset expectations about people not being able to buy piecemeal from the 1D&D books when they are released (or maybe not). I just wish that there had been better/clearer/earlier communication so that we didn't end up (once again) in a place of people making (sometimes wild) guesses or conspiracy theories. At this point we are in the dark.
As a retired accountant, I would say that most such number crunching is based as much on wild speculation as actual fact, at best, educated guesses, since the numbers you really need to crunch the question properly are normally not available until you try the new strategy. If you are going back to something you had been using recently or something, then you have that data to go on but that is unlikely to apply here.
I want it to be clear, if they are reading this, that it all stems from lack of communication. The OGL debacle really comes down to being released without a comprehensive explanation of the impact and decision to make the change. Same with a la carte purchases, maybe there's something bright on the horizon but we don't know about it so we feel hurt and abandoned. Or maybe there's not and they're just being *****. Who knows, becasue they won't tell us. And what is the new version called? One D&D, 5.5e..?
What we need from the Wizards is better communication. A for whether this will financially impact the company, it has been said that a corporation's responsibility is to its shareholders. So it is important to know what makes the shareholders happy...making money. Running off your customers to shave a few dollars doesn't make shareholders happy.
This may be a very unpopular opinion, but I think WotC has done a better job over the years than TSR ever did. WotC came up with the OGL which would never have happened under TSR. They've leveled out aspects of the game mechanics that TSR was too lazy to fix. They produce much more content (albeit some rehashed...but still fun) and they support third party publishers. UA Playtesting is the greatest moves they could have made and enough for me to keep my faith in the company. I know they mean well; there are just some issues, right now, that need to be addressed to get the company back on track.
This may be a very unpopular opinion, but I think WotC has done a better job over the years than TSR ever did. WotC came up with the OGL which would never have happened under TSR. They've leveled out aspects of the game mechanics that TSR was too lazy to fix. They produce much more content (albeit some rehashed...but still fun) and they support third party publishers. UA Playtesting is the greatest moves they could have made and enough for me to keep my faith in the company. I know they mean well; there are just some issues, right now, that need to be addressed to get the company back on track.
Thing is, I remember the 90s D&D world. One of the biggest reasons TSR was struggling, is that instead of making lots of smaller, easily accessible content, they were bundling things bigger and bigger together, and producing more and more $50 fluff. The "Complete Book of" stuff was moving away from providing modules and stories, and into "Bundled mess of rules" because that's what they could build.
WOTC changed that by rebuilding the game, releasing 3rd Ed, wrapping a good storyteller side to it, expanding the novels and settings etc. But now Hasbro is taking a bigger hand in monetization and driving it back towards "We sell toys", not "We build stories". So while WOTC has done a good job, it feels like (and a lot of the rumours indicate) Hasbro is tightening the reins and focusing on "How can we squeeze the whales". Which TSR tried and ended up selling out for $25 milllion in 1997.
Imagine selling the D&D franchise for $48 million (today's version of $25 million). Hasbro has a far more valuable product, but if they crash the game's value, that could be all it's worth in a few years.
Thing is, I remember the 90s D&D world. One of the biggest reasons TSR was struggling, is that instead of making lots of smaller, easily accessible content, they were bundling things bigger and bigger together, and producing more and more $50 fluff. The "Complete Book of" stuff was moving away from providing modules and stories, and into "Bundled mess of rules" because that's what they could build.
WOTC changed that by rebuilding the game, releasing 3rd Ed, wrapping a good storyteller side to it, expanding the novels and settings etc. But now Hasbro is taking a bigger hand in monetization and driving it back towards "We sell toys", not "We build stories". So while WOTC has done a good job, it feels like (and a lot of the rumours indicate) Hasbro is tightening the reins and focusing on "How can we squeeze the whales". Which TSR tried and ended up selling out for $25 milllion in 1997.
Imagine selling the D&D franchise for $48 million (today's version of $25 million). Hasbro has a far more valuable product, but if they crash the game's value, that could be all it's worth in a few years.
That's another point, and I've heard similar rumors. I prey they aren't true. I would hope Hasbro would let WotC run their company. I'm sure Hasbro has financial targets set for each of their subsidiaries but micromanaging them is suicide. I hope this isn't the case, but it does seems possible.
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Interesting logic, your "inference" is based on your assumption(s), unless you have access to information others do not, and unless that is the case we are all making assumptions to give weight to our individual parsing of the data available.
Again this is the same rhetoric and false logic cast towards those that speculated piece meal could be on the chopping block after the book of many things was released here with no piece meal options.
We are all just guessing, and your guess is no better than anyone else's at this point unless you have access to something others do not.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
This company is going to kill itself.
This is simply not true. The OGL did not define anything - copyright law did, and the OGL had some vague legalese that basically boiled down to "I guess follow copyright and trademark law for everything that is not on this list?" The SRD and Creative Commons will do the job just fine - the OGL added absolutely nothing useful legally. Use what is the SRD; do not use things that are not in the SRD. You do not need to be an expert in IP law to figure this out.
If you will please from now on post the complete text of the mentioned post, otherwise I will have to ask you to refrain from using any post quoted my be, Thank you.
To answer yor remark, left block of first page defies what WotC considers Trademark, Copyright, and IP property. Second bolck on right of legal page declares how such defined terms ( IP defined as etc, etc, …..zzz) can be used as part of the agreement of the terms.
It protected me as long as I painted between the lines, overstepped and i would expect WotC would own my ass, have not problem going through paperwork, and giving credit where credits due.
No, getting rid of the OGL is WotC needing something bad enough they ate a fireball to the gut and I do think they felt that.
Just a heads up anyone can click the black arrow next to your name to jump to the quoted post and read the whole post, I am personally not a fan of scrolling to get to the reply, and a snippet from the quoted post sure helps keep the scrolling to a minimum while providing the reply history and references what the reply is to. Just a thought from a different perspective.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
As I said, the OGL did not actually define anything - that section of the OGL basically boils down to “We consider our IP our IP, but you can use the things we list here if you want.” Maybe you found it useful, but from a legal and common sense perspective, it was just stating what everyone should already know.
It is pretty simple - if it is in the SRD, you can use it. If it is not and was something created by Wizards, you cannot unless covered by a different license (like on DMs Guild). If you need the legal equivalent of a contract written in crayon on a cocktail napkin (which is what the OGL pretty much was) to tell you more than that, not really sure what to tell you.
If you're using the CC-BY version, you do not need to know what WotC believes those terms to mean... because what they mean is defined by the license or general law, neither of which is under WotC control to start with. At a certain point it would be a good idea to talk to a lawyer... but that point is not meaningfully different for the different license versions.
Just giving people a heads up. I don't have access to any of my individually purchased content anymore.
Is there an easy(ish) way to identify what content you own on this site? Seems like it would be prudent to do a stocktake and try to confirm/deny what's actually going on here?
The list of content you have licensed can be found at this link.
Such an elegant interface🙄 and so easy to find. Sure would have been nice if they would implement this in the new marketplace.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
I’m sure we are both at this point going to agree to disagree.
I leaned legal jargon while learning financial lingo, so please quit insulting my intelligence, I deeply researched the legal framework of the OGL, was about to utilize it when the blow-up happened.
Now, with all that is going on, I can wait till the dust settles. I can read the tea leaves, certainty unclear.
I want to be clear, I am not insulting your intelligence - only that of whomever wrote the OGL. Speaking from the perspective of an attorney who has done some IP work and who has read a whole bunch of similar contracts (sometimes for my own entertainment), I can categorically say the OGL is the worst written license I have ever seen.
The entire contract has major holes, fails to define significant terms, and dedicates a significant portion of its already incredibly trite length to simply stating “hey, if we do not cover it here and we own the IP rights, we do in fact own those IP rights and do not cover it here.” They use slightly more verbose language and list those things explicitly - but, legally, it is kind of hollow language. It was a bad license and should cease to be used. Everyone - Wizards and content creators alike - is better off just using the Creative Commons.
Edit: I suppose this is neither here nor there. The only thing that really matters for this thread is the importance of communication - and, fortunately, Wizards does seem to be doing that regarding the SRD and 2024, as per their recent update on the subject.
Yea, I’m well aware of many an IP lawyer absolutely loathing sandbox license agreements. But damage done.
Well a-la-carte is currently no longer being served and no idea if a return will happen. Well the hornets nest has been rattled, lets see how long before we hear screams.
I see where you are coming from with the majority of your "we don't have evidence" view, which is valid. I might take a bit of issue with valuing piecemeal purchasers at $2 vs $30 though. If folks are buying piecemeal it more probable they but a few different feats and content. IF you just assume 5 items at $2 each, then it's closer to $10 vs $30 if you compare person to person. Then it's no longer a conceivable 7% sales hurdle. But you're fundamentally right, we don't have the numbers and one would imagine somebody somewhere did some work on historical sales to make this leap.
I definitely think it's safe to assume that someone on the Hasboro/WotC crunched the numbers and that whatever data came out of that, it was at least influential in making this decision. It would be foolish to think otherwise. Perhaps it was also partly speculative and they wanted to preset expectations about people not being able to buy piecemeal from the 1D&D books when they are released (or maybe not). I just wish that there had been better/clearer/earlier communication so that we didn't end up (once again) in a place of people making (sometimes wild) guesses or conspiracy theories. At this point we are in the dark.
As a retired accountant, I would say that most such number crunching is based as much on wild speculation as actual fact, at best, educated guesses, since the numbers you really need to crunch the question properly are normally not available until you try the new strategy. If you are going back to something you had been using recently or something, then you have that data to go on but that is unlikely to apply here.
Quite possibly so.
I want it to be clear, if they are reading this, that it all stems from lack of communication. The OGL debacle really comes down to being released without a comprehensive explanation of the impact and decision to make the change. Same with a la carte purchases, maybe there's something bright on the horizon but we don't know about it so we feel hurt and abandoned. Or maybe there's not and they're just being *****. Who knows, becasue they won't tell us. And what is the new version called? One D&D, 5.5e..?
What we need from the Wizards is better communication. A for whether this will financially impact the company, it has been said that a corporation's responsibility is to its shareholders. So it is important to know what makes the shareholders happy...making money. Running off your customers to shave a few dollars doesn't make shareholders happy.
This may be a very unpopular opinion, but I think WotC has done a better job over the years than TSR ever did. WotC came up with the OGL which would never have happened under TSR. They've leveled out aspects of the game mechanics that TSR was too lazy to fix. They produce much more content (albeit some rehashed...but still fun) and they support third party publishers. UA Playtesting is the greatest moves they could have made and enough for me to keep my faith in the company. I know they mean well; there are just some issues, right now, that need to be addressed to get the company back on track.
Thing is, I remember the 90s D&D world. One of the biggest reasons TSR was struggling, is that instead of making lots of smaller, easily accessible content, they were bundling things bigger and bigger together, and producing more and more $50 fluff. The "Complete Book of" stuff was moving away from providing modules and stories, and into "Bundled mess of rules" because that's what they could build.
WOTC changed that by rebuilding the game, releasing 3rd Ed, wrapping a good storyteller side to it, expanding the novels and settings etc. But now Hasbro is taking a bigger hand in monetization and driving it back towards "We sell toys", not "We build stories". So while WOTC has done a good job, it feels like (and a lot of the rumours indicate) Hasbro is tightening the reins and focusing on "How can we squeeze the whales". Which TSR tried and ended up selling out for $25 milllion in 1997.
Imagine selling the D&D franchise for $48 million (today's version of $25 million). Hasbro has a far more valuable product, but if they crash the game's value, that could be all it's worth in a few years.
That's another point, and I've heard similar rumors. I prey they aren't true. I would hope Hasbro would let WotC run their company. I'm sure Hasbro has financial targets set for each of their subsidiaries but micromanaging them is suicide. I hope this isn't the case, but it does seems possible.